193 Days and Counting - Passing on Good Ideas and Good Events

I'm back from a great camping experience with my students (what a wonderful way to witness "the whole child" and guide each student to Mother Nature's marvels) and realizing that a compassionate action to take would be to pass on other people's compassionate actions! So here goes. Please keep in mind that people living in the North, especially those living traditional lifestyles, are already being gravely impacted by climate disruption.

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Countdown to Copenhagen is Isuma's six-month internet campaign to promote the importance of Inuit (indigenous people of the Arctic) knowledge and human rights in the global discussion of Climate Change. Monthly webcasts on IsumaTV from May to November will culminate in Live From the Floe Edge, ten days of daily internet streaming hosted by Zacharias Kunuk live from his arctic wilderness hunting camp during the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, December 7-17.


The series will launch with a live webcast on Friday May 29, featuring Siila (also known as Sheila) Watt-Cloutier, Inuit climate activist and 2007 Nobel Peace Prize nominee, speaking on Inuit, Human Rights and Climate Change live from Iqaluit, Nunavut, Canada to a worldwide audience. The program leads off at 7:45 pm EST with the World Premiere of Tungijuq, Isuma's new 6-minute video starring Inuit jazz and throat-singing sensation, Tanya Tagaq. At 8 pm Siila Watt-Cloutier delivers the 9th annual LaFontaine-Baldwin Lecture, introduced by John Ralston Saul, The Right Honorable Michaelle Jean, Governor General of Canada, Isuma's Zacharias Kunuk and The Honourable Ann Meekitjuk Hanson, Commissioner of Nunavut.


If you live in Canada, some screenings have been organized in big cities for Friday, May 29. (Visit the website below for more info.)


If you live elsewhwere, tune in by internet at home. Or get your own group together to watch the launch! Maybe in a screening room/small cinema or just at somebody's house with a good internet connection - anybody interested in climate justice, native issues/culture, or else fans of Isuma's films (Atanarjuat - The Fast Runner, Journals of Knud Rasmussen, Before Tomorrow). Invite your friends, make it a creative happening/salon - we need some grassroots (cross-continental) energy to start going viral!


Throughout 2009 Countdown to Copenhagen Live Webcasts will be downloaded to a growing network of digital screening rooms from Vancouver, Calgary and Montreal to as far as Tromso, Norway and Alice Springs, Australia. IsumaTV has the goal by December 2009 of a network of 1000 local-to-global screening groups around the world watching Live from the Floe Edge through digital download-to-projection.


Watch at: http://www.isuma.tv/hi/en